Shuttle gets local homeless families on their feet and rolling

Friday

Jan 18, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Every night about 5 p.m., a bus pulls onto Pine Street in Spartanburg. It's large and black, and a yellow lightning bolt runs across both sides — it stands out on the roadways as it makes its way through traffic.

By DUSTIN WYATTdustin.wyatt@shj.com

Every night about 5 p.m., a bus pulls onto Pine Street in Spartanburg.It's large and black, and a yellow lightning bolt runs across both sides — it stands out on the roadways as it makes its way through traffic.It's sometimes mistaken for a party bus, said driver Crystal Gagnon, who has navigated the vehicle seven days a week for years.To the four families on board, it is, in a way, because being on this bus is much better than the alternative — being on the streets.That's where Cheri Oggs, sitting in the back seat on a recent Tuesday, might have wound up.A few months ago, the 26-year-old single mom moved from Arizona to live with her mother in Spartanburg.But a short time later, because of unforeseen circumstances, her mother was evicted from her home.Oggs and her 1-year-old daughter, Briana, were left with nowhere to go.“I knew I was homeless,” she said.Worried, scared and stressed beyond belief, Oggs called around seeking help.

“Every shelter was telling me they were full, they didn't have any room,” she said. “I didn't know what I was going to do. I was stuck.”Then she found hope in a black bus.She heard about the Spartanburg Interfaith Hospitality Network (SPIHN), a ministry-based nonprofit that shuttles homeless families to a different church nightly, where they are fed and given a place to sleep.“I called and talked to Jessica (Otteson), their case manager, and she took my number and information,” Oggs said.In a few weeks, Oggs got the call.“I'm very grateful, I could never thank them enough,” she said. “They took me in when no one else would. I didn't have anyone else.”As the bus moved down John B. White Sr. Boulevard on Tuesday, laughter rose from the seats as one man aboard showcased his talent for impersonations.Many children on the bus started singing songs. Others looked out the windows as other cars, lights and scenery rolled by in a blur. Briana Oggs slept peacefully in a car seat.These people are what Beth Rutherford, SPIHN's executive director, calls the “new face of homelessness.”“They don't have long beards or raggedy hair. They don't have a shopping cart. Some of them have college degrees. Many of them didn't do anything to become homeless.”

Many of the parents have jobs and are working to get out of SPIHN and get their own place.Cheri Oggs is taking college classes online. She often studies her classwork while riding the bus.When you see that bus traveling down the roadways, it might have a different look on the outside. But the people who sit inside are “just like you and me,” Rutherford said.The SPIHN program formed in 2005 with a mission to help homeless children and their families become self-sufficient by bringing together community resources and to provide essential human needs and life skills in a compassionate environment.Thirteen churches provide shelter to the four families in the program. The churches alternate each week.The help really is interfaith, said Beth Rutherford, executive director.“All of these different denominations come together,” she said.The families stay at the SPIHN facility on Pine Street during the day, then are shuttled to one of the host churches at 5 p.m. every night. In the morning, the families are taken back to the SPIHN facility; the bus takes children to and from school. Those involved in the program were chosen after a criminal background check and must stay drug-free for the safety of other families. Most families stay in the program for about two months.On a recent Tuesday evening, the black bus pulled in front of Joy Lutheran Church and 14 passengers stepped out, most of them children.Each carry items for the night — blankets, pillows, overnight bags.

Inside the church, Sunday school classrooms are transformed, at least for the week, into individual bedrooms. Each family has their own room, with beds for each person.Mary Ann Bethea, a SPIHN board member and parishioner at Joy Lutheran, said the church was built with SPIHN in mind.“Our bathrooms have showers, and we have sinks in some of the rooms,” she said. “We are so happy to be able to help these families.”